10 Things I Do Not Want To Do Before 6 am

1) Get out of bed.
2) Get in a cab with a cab driver that dips and dodges imaginary cars on the interstate at 4 am.
3) Pay $40 for a seven minute cab ride.
4) Take my shoes off for inspection.
5) Listen to woman talk about how her bag was "13.4 net pounds" over weight. Not why, just how. All the way to our gate.
6) Listen to CNN talk about government shutdown. Isn't there some kind of "Soothing Airport Sleeping Music" channel we could be listening to instead?
7) Listen to a woman talk on her phone about how she wants to save her phone battery.
8) Listen to anyone talk.
9) Miss Beardy. It's too early to be sad.
10) Drift in between sleeping on my backpack\pillow and excitement of seeing my family today. I'm supposed to be snuggling under a warm blanket right now.

Synopsis: Flights before 6 am are stupid.

A Side Thought

There is a big rock in the backyard of my parent's home.  My last summer living there, I went to the local nursery and picked out all the flowers that I thought were beautiful (and that I could afford).  I surrounded the rock with dahlias, lilies, some purple spidery thing, foxgloves and mums.  The outside is lined by yellow and red knockout roses. 

The rock is just in the right place where is it completely covered by sun most of the day except at noon, when it is the hottest.  Sometimes, when I get really down or stressed out, I take myself out of the snow, the busy street, a honking cab, and put myself on that rock.  I don't have any shoes on because you just don't do that in the South.  I stretch my arms and legs as far they'll go, letting the sun warm every piece of me it can get to.  And then I do nothing.  I lay there, and I smile, and I drink in the warmth and the flowers and the stillness of it all.

Nobody (s)knows the trouble I’ve seen…

Once upon a time, I lived at the beach. It was wonderful; warm almost every day, taking rides with the windows down on a Thursday afternoon in October. I loved it. Then I decided to move to Boston, thinking I had become too complacent in my safe little hideaway of a city, and that I needed adventure. So I took a giant leap of faith and landed in this beautiful city full of hipsters, business people, intelligentsia, hobos and other wonderful, interesting people. And there were cool historical buildings, great walks down Boylston and Beacon, and lazily sitting at the waterfront basking in the glorious sun. And I loved it here too.

Then it snowed for 3 months.

I think I died a little inside this winter. And I’m also blaming my lack of blogging on my deficiency of Vitamin D. I am like a solar panel of creativity. That being said, the sun was out all weekend, and I once again basked in it, therefore giving me enough creative flow to start having adventures again (and telling you about my first REAL winter).

Angry Bear

I think most people would agree that I’m a relatively pleasant person. I smile a lot. I see the glass half full. I think babies and puppies are cute.




But there are some days that I’m not so happy and smiley. I like to call them my “Angry Bear” days.

I’m sure everyone feels has days like this; those days when everyone surrounding you are not people, but spawns of Satan setting out to ruin your day. I don’t want to smile at all. The glass is half empty because some jerk drank it and his nasty, rotten teeth backwash is in it so it may as well be completely empty. And babies and puppies are still kind of cute, but I can’t help but notice the massive amount of extra work both present.



Times like these are when I really miss my friend M. We can’t meet at the corner Starbucks anymore and listen to each other vent about our problems, and nod and assure the other one that things are going to get better somehow. That is the great thing about M. I know that I can always count on her to listen first and then see if I want advice. And if I don’t, she’s ok with just giving me a hug instead.

I have new friends in Boston, but, of course, I haven’t embarked on “best friendship-dom” with them yet. There are just some things you can’t replace. And I have Beardy, and he is actually a great listener, but I can’t talk to Beardy about Beardy when those oh so wonderful relationship problems arise.  Especially when it's just more of a "venting" that is needed than an actual discussion of issues.

(If you are wondering why he has gloves on, it is because I do not have the ability to draw hands)

Not saying that Beardy has brought on Angry Bear today (and not saying he hasn’t); it’s just been one of those weeks, really, that has been the perfect storm of obstacles in all aspects of life, and I really just want to rip my hair out. Alas, this is why blogging is great. Because now this isn’t in my head anymore; it’s in cyber-land, blog-space, and I’m already starting to feel a little better. :)

The DCG Has an Epiphany

If you had told me one year ago that at 24 I would have uprooted my entire life and career and moved to a city where I knew virtually no one, that I would be looking in a mirror in an upstairs bathroom, straightening my hair and listening to a bunch of goofy boys freestyling to jam band music downstairs ad thinking how happy I was, that I'd be talking to my mother on the phone and convincing her that I really did love a city covered in 50 inches of snow and never wanted to move back to my beloved South, I would have pushed my feet a little farther into the sand, looked out at the ocean and told you that you obviously didn't know me very well.

But apparently the joke was on me.

I think it is so funny to think about where I was this time last year, even 7 months ago, and how different the place I am in now is from the place I'd dreamed that I'd be.  Up to the moment I pulled out of my driveway, I didn't really think I would do it.  I couldn't leave behind my entire family, my entire heart, and go to some city that I had been once.  What would I do when I got there?  What if I hated my roommates?  What would I do for a job? A bed?  What if I couldn't make any friends?

I was petrified.  I was leaving everything, EVERYTHING, that I had ever known behind on some crazy need to start anew.  I couldn't do it.  But I did.  And I'll never regret it.

I'm sitting in Beardy's bed, listening to him and his friends sing everything from classics to improvised songs about Shakeweights while they strum lazily on guitars.  Tears are literally rolling out of my eyes.

I pull my tank top over my damp hair and look out the window at the mounds of snow outside and count the days until Spring.  My shoulders tense up when I think that I only have two days left until I have to go back to work, and the pressure of being an English major in an accounts receivable job.  And I wouldn't have it any other way.  I can't remember the last time I was this happy.  And I think that is the most ridiculous thought I have ever had.  Because I'm a Southern girl...to the core.  I can't live without my family.  I'm supposed to hate the cold and the snow and the business of the city.  But I can't imagine myself anywhere else now.

I guess the point of this story is that you can't plan for things.  I mean you can, but it probably won't work out that way.  Things will change, you will change and you will find out new things about yourelf that you ever would have thought you were capable of.  Your dreams won't come true, and I thank God that mine haven't.  Because my dreams of yesterday would have led me somewhere else today.  And that would just be tragic.

New Year Resolutions

1) Concentrate more on getting shape and less on losing weight.

2) Enjoy more extra curricular activities (Zumba, join a softball team, etc...)

3) Be more vocal.  I need to stop being scared of saying what I really feel (blaming in on that Southern upbringing, bless my heart).

4) Try every pastry shop in the North End (which may prove as a hinderance to Res #1)

5) Go to Top of the Hub Skywalk and take an amazing picture (and maybe treat myself to a sweet dinner)

6) Make sure that I keep in touch with friends better.  I've found that traveling between here and home makes it quite a bit harder to give my friendships in both places the TLC they deserve and need.

My Land of Women

Finding good roommates is kind of like dating.  Like dating your best friend, living with them can either bring you closer or completely obliterate any crumb of a relationship you may have by the time one of you moves out in the middle of the night.  And like dating on the internet, you really never know what you are going to get.

Now, I know the fallacies of Craigslist.  I have experienced some of them myself.  I once found a roommate who advertised herself as "Quiet, but still likes to have fun occasionally.  Looking for someone who can be a friend as well as a roommate."  Well, quiet ended up meaning absolutely crazy and likes to have fun meant watching the mold grow in the bottle of ketchup she kept in the fridge that she refused quite profusely to throw out.

Single White Female, anyone?

My experience with internet "Roommate Dating" was different this go around.   I have had the fortune of falling into a group of wonderful, beautiful women who are so diverse but have no problem finding a common ground in any situation.  And believe me, these girls are VERY different than anything that I'm used to...seeing as they are all lesbians.

Living in the South, I was never really exposed to this Land of Women.  I had two good friends who were homosexual, but they were the only two people I knew who were openly gay.  One of the reasons why I love my girls here is that they are uber out.  They rejoice in not only other women's bodies, but their own also.  They are so confident in their womanhood, and it is wonderful living in an environment where we are so celebrated.

And, of course, they are so much fun.  Whenever I am not with the boyfriend (yes I really do have one and the girls have affectionately named him "Beardy," as he will now be known to you all), you can find me doing something completely ridiculous with the girls.  We all openly love 30 Rock and are secretly obsessed with Glee.  We love dressing up and going out, or putting on our most unflattering pj's and cooking dinner for each other.  I realized how lucky I was the other night as we gathered around the tv for our weekly Glee viewing.  Everyone was a twitter about how the team would perform at Sectionals and why we all are in love with Brittany.  Trying to be more health conscious, we were all chewing wilty spinach leaves with the least disgusting of the fat free dressings we had begrudgingly purchased at the store.  We soon became bored with being healthy, and I was chosen as the one to make the snack run.  After I had collected the money, I sprinted, literally, down the street in my pajamas in the 30 degree weather to the tiny convenience store on the corner to buy ice cream sandwiches for everyone.

I luckily made it back home before the show came on (not that it was my favorite anyways), but whether we enjoyed the episode or not, all of us broke into song when the kids on tv started singing Florence and The Machine.  We apparently became re-interested in being healthy (it was probably the adrenaline of our spontaneous performance talking) and then engaged in a self made group exercise program.  When our earnest working out disintegrated into riotous laughter at the spectacle we were making of ourselves, we decided to look to the professionals for help.  We found something that looked like it may be easy on our Video on Demand, "Beauty Body Sculpt."  I'll admit we were a little sexist in choosing this.  It sounded like something that toothpick women who didn't really need to work out but wanted to look like they were doing something to make themselves look so beautiful would do.  And, in the beginning, we seemed to be right.  Our self-induced illusion was soon quelled when our pretty exercise guide informed us that what we thought had been a moderate workout was actually just a warm up.  The little workout devil woman then launched into some hellish exercise routine that had five girls jumping and pumping fists and lunging and twisting themselves into such a frenzy that by the end, those of us that weren't laying in the floor claiming their legs did not work were trying to hold ourselves up on the bookshelves while we gulped in breaths of hot, sweaty, living room air.

We then fell on the floor with our fallen comrades as our tired, tired bodies were raked by more laughter.

This is my life now.  I know that my best friend M was worried when she let this baby bird fly out of the nest we had made in SC, but I already cannot wait for her to come visit me and meet not only Beardy, but this group of radical women who are breaking down boundaries not only within the realms of the society in which  we live, but, as sappy as it sounds, in my own heart too.

It's "wicked pissah." :)